Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius

Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius is a masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini created in 1618-1619. The sculpture depicts a scene from the Aeneid, where Aeneas leads his family from burning Troy.

History

The sculpture was created when Bernini was only twenty years old. It is assumed that Pietro Bernini, father of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, helped his son in the sculpture’s creation. Pietro’s artworks were famous and Mannerist sculptures were even commissioned by the Pope. When Pope Paul V saw the works of Gian Lorenzo, he could not believe in a talent of such a young boy. Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who commissioned the sculpture, loved arts, money, and male physical beauty.

It is said that earlier works of other famous artists influenced the sculpture. For instance, the statue of Christ by Michelangelo, located in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, has served as a prototype for the figure of Aeneas. Moreover, the head of Aeneas matches with Pietro Bernini’s John the Baptist, located in Cappella Barberini in Sant’ Andrea della Valle. In addition, it is assumed that it has elements taken from Raphael’s Fire at the Borgo, located in the Vatican Museums.

Analysis

This life-sized group represents three generations of the Aeneas family. The theme of Aeneas’s flight from Troy, with his father Anchises on his back and accompanied by his son Ascanius and his wife Creusa – the latter is not shown in the sculptural group – is drawn from the second book of Virgil’s “Aeneid.” In the figures of the father, son, and grandson, there is an apparent reference to the topic, which is often painted, of the three ages of man. The embodiment of Anchises on Aeneas’s back shows an issue of statics that Antonio Pollaiolo resolved in his “Hercules and Antaeus,” while Leonardo described it from a theoretical perspective.

In the “Aeneid,” Virgil did not specify how Anchises was carried on his son’s back, and Bernini, taking an example from earlier sculptural creations, such as Giambologna’s “Rape of the Sabines,” also accepted the challenge of portraying the movement of weight by a walking figure.

Patronage

The figures of Aeneas and Anchises – and with them, the union of youth and old age – are seen in connection to the political role of the Pope’s nephew, Scipione Borghese. He was able to support his elderly uncle. Moreover, in the 17th century, doubts were raised about the artwork’s authorship: the German artist and writer Joachim von Sandrart assigned the sculpture to Pietro Bernini and his sons, while Domenico Bernini attributed it to his father, Gian Lorenzo, as did Bernini’s biographer, Filippo Baldinucci. Art historians discussed this question from the end of the 19th century to the mid-20th century until an archive document proving Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s work was found.

The sculptural group is made of white marble. Its height is 220 cm and the pedestal’s height is 113 cm.

Author: Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, as architect and city planner, designed secular buildings, churches, chapels, and public squares, as well as massive works combining both architecture and sculpture, incredibly elaborate public fountains and funerary monuments, and a whole series of temporary structures (in stucco and wood) for funerals and festivals.

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